Al Anon's Step 6

Al Anon's Step 6: Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. 

So, what is "ready"? When I first came to Al Anon I was a little afraid of this step. Of course, I was still thinking that outside forces controlled me, and that something or someone else would decide when I was ready. I've since found that step 6 just happens and it is instinctual. When holding on to a character defect becomes more difficult  than anything else, I know I am ready. But, it is only with what I've learned in the years of working the Al Anon program that makes me see how a defect is harmful and understand that it should go. Once I accept my defects through working the previous steps, I can work on letting it go. 

Working this step depends on our relationships with ourselves and our Higher Power. In my notes from Al Anon meetings, I have one that reminds me that Step 3 (Made a decision to turn our loves over to the care of God as we understood God). is critical to Step 6. All God needs to know is that we are willing. God gets to choose when and how fast these defects are removed. We can ask, but we must let go of the result. 

(Photo by Marcel Hol.)

Detachment helps me a lot in this step. I often have a skewed view of my own faults because of criticism from the alcoholic. I've also found that, in my early days of Al Anon, the alcoholic was afraid of how I may change through Al Anon because he has his own system of control and manipulation that I was getting ready to opt out of. The steps helped me pull away from that destructive behavior and I began to change. 

Sometimes if I am not as ready as I would like, I have to think carefully about what might be stopping me. Perfection is an excuse to not do something. I've found that when I am trying to work on a defect (or even long after I've forgotten that I've asked for a defect to be removed) my Higher Power will give me tests of willingness. That means that I am suddenly in many different situations where I will have to deal with a defect over and over again until I improve.     

While Step 6 can still be intimidating to think about, I find myself unconsciously practicing it in everyday life. I like to think of this as giving less useful things away and preparing room in myself for better things.

Al Anon's Step 5

Al Anon's Step 5: Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.  

(Photo by Dora Pete.)

 In meetings I've heard of Al Anon's step 5 referred to as a "sleeper step". Sometimes people talk about how they are tempted to skip it or not give enough time to it. Now that I reflect on it, Step 5 was perhaps one of the hardest steps for me. I was one of those people who felt tremendously guilty because I
thought that I was harming everyone and everything all of the time. Determining the "exact nature" of my wrongs was hard, but my sponsor helped me sort it out. She asked me questions like,  "Do you really think the things you did back in grade school were harmful enough to be included?" She was simply asking me a question, but I quickly realized how silly some of my ideas about myself were. 

I hated talking to others because of the shame I felt in coming from an alcoholic home, but through Al Anon I learned that being honest about it makes it less shameful. This step is about breaking isolation and not living alone with the crazy stuff in your head. We begin to come out of it and see that our behavior is crazy and we begin to see things differently.   Interestingly, my notes from different Step 5 meetings are about feeling crazy or dealing with "crazy" people. One sensible note says,  "I'm not crazy, my thoughts are crazy." Another note deals with letting the crazy person have the last word in an argument. That can be pretty hard, but I've found that it leads to dropping the issue without further argument, like when I talked about "Letting go of the rope". This is part of detachment and one thing I've heard often at meetings is, "Bless them, change me".

I realized that step 5 is about changing the way we talk about ourselves. It is about seeing things for what they are and not clouding the issue when we have to talk to others. It is another part of the process in removing denial (which can take a long time).  I've found that if I have problems with Step 5 I can go back to Step 3  (Made a decision to turn our lives over to the care of God as we understood God.) for strength before I move on.                                                                                                                                                                        

 Lastly, I'd like to leave you with a little Al Anon joke. We used to tell each other, "Don't do your fifth step on the first date".

Al Anon's Step 4

Al Anon’s step 4: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.

Ugh, step 4

When I go to step meetings I always breathe a sigh of relief when we get over the hump and pass these middle steps, sometimes called the "action steps" because we have to get out in the world and do something other than just think about it. I wrote about some of the emotions involved when I did step four in the entry "The Hardest Steps"and now I want to talk about how I approached it. From my very first days in Al Anon I worried about this step because I felt I would be confronted all at once with every horrible failing that I had. In my first year I was also scared by the intensity with which others approached this step. In meetings, a lot is made of the Al Anon workbook Blueprint for Progress: 4^th Step Inventory but this is only a tool to get us thinking. We can only decide for ourselves how to approach this step, and when we are ready.

(Photo by Laura Nubuck.)

Here are the things that worked for me when I did Al Anon's Step 4:

1.) I realized that only I could decide when I was ready to start this step. It just snuck up on me one day and, after months of agonizing,  beginning the step just suddenly felt right.

2.) Once I was ready, I had to just start, even if it is only in one small way. What I did was to take a question each day from Blueprint for Progress, write it down, and keep it in my pocket so I could think about it during the day. Later, especially after I got a sponsor, this all speeded up. But, it allowed me to get going easily. 

3.) As much as I love the AA members in my life, I realized that I should not let them tell me how to do my 4th step. In my area, Al Anon approaches this step differently and I learned not to feel guilty if I wasn't doing it the "original" way. This leads me to...

4.) Every single 12 stepper has a different definition of "fearless" but that doesn't mean that it has to be mine, or that I'm are doing it wrong if I don't follow what others do. Meetings and online forums can be full of very opinionated members who think that anything less than their method is not fearless. As I've moved on in the program, I've learned that the idea of fearlessness changes as I grow. As I get stronger I can dig into something new I never realized about myself before. That led me to this next realization.

5.) The first time I did the fourth step would not have to be the only time and a Step 4 inventory doesn't have to be perfect. This comforted me greatly as it took me about 6 months to complete this step. I thought about it all the time and didn't think I was "fearless" enough if it wasn't constantly on my mind. I went in circles with it and frustrated myself until I realized that I should just stop because there would be other opportunities to do this step again as I grew. 

6.) I learned to stop. This was perhaps the most important realization I had. I saw at one point that I was just stuck on the same things and I should just end it and call my sponsor and set a time to do Step 5. Some members make a big deal about how long they worked on this step, but at some point "searching" becomes frustrating and I learned that it is OK to move on.

 So, those are some of my experiences. For more of my experiences see the Step 4 tag.

Al Anon's Step 3

Al Anon's Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him. 

In retrospect, I now realize that had a lot of trouble with this step. I know that step 3 is often called a "sleeper step" because some of us don't give it the attention it deserves until we realize we can't go on without gaining a deeper understanding of this step. After establishing powerlessness in Step 1 and understanding that a HP is there for us in Step 2, this step has us trusting our Higher Power to take care of the big stuff. The idea of "trust" made it quite a big step for me.

Often in Step 3 meetings people talk about decision-making. Simple decisions—make a decision and let it

(Photo by Andrew Beierle.)

go. We are not responsible for the reactions of other people so we can’t try to do “damage control” when we tell them something. We just have to be straightforward.

When I first read this step, little did I realize how important the “make a decision” part played into it. This step is all about making a decision, doing only what is my responsibility, and then letting go. I try to no longer look for solutions in people who I think are a problem. Not messing with something is the best way to show faith. This step is about serenity and “leaving the battlefield”, or, as in this Al Anon story, “Letting Go of the Rope”. I have learned that responding is better than reacting.

Al Anon's Step 2

Al Anon's Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

When I first read about this step I didn't like the idea of considering myself insane. That is not the point of the step, though, but it is about trusting in your Higher Power and stopping crazy behavior. In my Al Anon notebooks I have notes telling me that Step one is the problem and Step two is the solution. This step offers sanity as an option, but in the past I never understood that I had this choice.

I remember reading about Step 2 during my first few months in Al Anon. We had just had a very snowy winter and during a particular storm I realized that I had so much food stored away that it would take me six months to eat it all. On top of that, I only lived a block from the supermarket! I grew up in an alcoholic home and we never knew if we were going to eat from one meal to the next. As an adult, I had to take step 2 with my kitchen. I had to realize that I was the adult in the situation and I had done a good job of feeding myself when I needed to. I just had to let go of the "insane" hoarding behavior of the past and trust in both God and myself that I would have something to eat when I needed it.

After being in the program a little while I understood more about "restore us to sanity". It means recognizing a dysfunctional situation and not getting involved in it. Often in Al Anon people quote the saying, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Detachment helps me with this problem.

(Photo by Nils Thingvall.)

For example, I often opt out of activities with my boyfriend's kids, who are all over 21. This is not because I don't like them, but rather because I do not like to be involved with "insane" behavior. Two of them live out of state, do not communicate their plans, and expect him to just be ready and willing to entertain them and pay for everything whenever they show up. Well, my boyfriend grumbles a lot about this but whenever they show up he acts like nothing is wrong and is happy to stop whatever he is doing to do something with them. Well, that is his problem, but I didn't like it when he expected me to be ready and willing to be involved on a moment's notice. I used to agree to doing things with his kids because I wanted to help him make things "normal" for his family. But, then I ended up being resentful because I would give up a day on short notice only to sit around with him while we both wondered when the kids would get there. Then, they were always late and we could not do what we planned. If I complained about this he said that since he didn't see them as much, he wasn't going to say anything to them.

Well, they are not my kids and while I like them I don't have the baggage that he has with them. I don't need to feel guilty if I am not involved because I decided that I can ask other adults to make reasonable plans with me and respect my time. Letting others decide what I will do is "insane" behavior. I decided to be less involved with my boyfriend's children, I have not regretted it once. After these visits he always calls me and complains about them doing the same thing. I've decided to stop doing the same thing over and over again and I am a lot happier.

Al Anon's Step 1

Al Anon’s Step 1: We are powerless over alcohol and our lives have become unmanageable.

When I first came to I was a bit offended by Al Anon’s first step. After all, I did not drink myself. What really helped me was when I heard that some members think of it as being powerless over other people. Since then, I’ve learned a lot more about the subtleties in Step 1.

I’ve learned that I can also think of this step as being powerless over how alcohol affects others. In our meetings we talk about the “3 Cs”—we didn’t cause the alcoholism, can’t cure it and can’t control it. But we can contribute to it. I realized that I was trying to control another person’s alcoholism by putting their needs first or jumping in to make it all better.

(Photo by Andrey Gorshkov.)

Step one is a good step for me to be on these days as my boyfriend has tremendous family problems and seems to be on a slippery slope. This is the hard part—I have to “love him through it” (as they say in the rooms) and “provide support and encouragement to the alcoholic” (as they say in the Al Anon preamble). Though, it is hard to be supportive and encouraging when he’s skipped all of his AA meetings for the past few weeks for what seems like a weak excuse.I can't comment on any of this -- I have to just trust that he will right himself and find his own way.

One important thing I realized in my time at was that I learned to accept that the alcoholic (and everybody else) has their own Higher Power. I should have no need to keep track of all the little things that other people are doing. Snooping was one way that I realized I was trying to control people. One of the first things I did when I first came to the program was to stop checking who called my boyfriends phone or asking him all the details of his phone call when he takes a call in my presence. I learned that obsessive thinking is a sign that I should think harder about working Step 1. Internal chaos is a sign that life is unmanageable. Reassurance should come from my relationship with my Higher Power rather from other people.

 Step one also helps me with arguments. In my early days in Al Anon I sat in a meeting talking about a fight I had with my boyfriend and how I felt like I was going in circles with him. After the meeting the guy next to me turned to me and said, “There’s no reasoning with an alcoholic.” At the time I thought that was extreme but at the same time very true. When we talk about being “restored to sanity” (as in Step) we can understand that an alcoholic is manipulating us and creating diversions to avoid the real issue. However, keeping my lessons in mind, I try not to react. I don’t want my serenity (or sanity) disrupted, so the best thing to do is to not react to crazy behavior or attempts to engage me in arguments. I try to accept being powerless over his behavior and try to understand that his behavior is a reflection on him and not me.

In the past I also wrote a little about detachment and Step one in my entry “Letting Go of the Rope”

Al Anon's Step 12

I’ve been very busy lately but I knew that if I skip writing about the step of the month I’d regret it later. So, here are some quick thoughts.

(Photo by Ann- Kathrin Rehse.)

Al Anon’s Step 12: Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to others, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

In so many meetings I've been to, I often hear people say "I wanted what she had" because they have a moment of clarity when they see the program working in someone else and they don't want to live their old life anymore. I have certainly had those moments, but I knew I was working step 12 during the first time I was a speaker at an Al Anon group. I told my story (which I thought was unremarkable in the face of what others went through) and shared some thoughts on how Al Anon helped me to overcome this.

After the meeting, a crying woman came up to me in the ladies room and wanted my phone number because she thought I was the most amazing speaker she had ever heard. It was a little scary, really, especially since I only told my story and didn’t say or do anything spectacular. I knew that it was the first time anyone wanted what I had, in an Al Anon sense. One way I work step 12, then, is to just live my life according to the program and talk about it whenever appropriate.  Living my life well is the best way to spread the message.

I’ve heard that a spiritual awakening is a dramatic shift in your perspective. The strongest message is the change in you. This step comes at the end, because we need to get ourselves in order before we have what we need to pass to others.

Al-Anon's Step 11

Al-Anon's Step 11 - Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

Sometimes I think of this as my favorite step, and many times it looms large in my mind as one I am consciously working on. However, going through my notebooks I realized that I have not been to very many meetings on Step 11. I procrastinated in writing on this step as I have gone through a lot lately and writing about how I work this step is almost too personal to share at this time. But, I will write about how I got into it.

(Photo by Selma Yalazi.)

I was not excited about the “prayer” part of this step in the beginning because I had some issues with the religion of my origin. I thought of prayer as an obligatory thing, and so when I did it I rarely felt a connection with God. The idea of meditation was, and still is, more accessible to me. To get used to talking to my Higher Power on an intimate basis I had to learn to be quiet so I could tune in to the messages I was supposed to receive. I learned that I should not pray for others or for a specific cause, but to ask for guidance in my situation. Then, I had to accept how my Higher Power resolved my problems, which may not be the way I intended. I have to be confident that my Higher Power will take care of my loved ones and myself and that things will work out, even if I don't know how.

Learning to meditate had been a big part of my Al Anon experience. For most of my life I could not imagine sitting still and clearing my mind for even three seconds.  I found yoga invaluable for calming my mind for mediation as I could work out the compulsion to always be doing or thinking about something and instead focus on the class. (I have heard is the original purpose of the yoga poses – to quiet your mind and to focus on meditation.) Part of the reason I began taking yoga classes is that I knew that there was meditation included in the class, and I had no idea of how to do meditation on my own. I knew I needed someone else to guide me. It is only in recent months that I began doing meditation on my own. 

I tried a number of different ways to learn meditation outside of Al Anon and yoga. Once, a Buddhist monk led a meditation workshop at the local library, and that helped a lot. At that time I was not yet practicing yoga and the monk helped us to learn how to just sit in a regular chair and meditate. He said for us to simply sit upright, place our feet flat on the floor, and rest our hands in our lap. (I mention this because an Al-Anon friend injured himself trying to meditate. He thought you had to meditate while sitting cross legged on the floor, but he did not realize that at his age he was no longer physically able to do so.)

I did not get much out of reading books on the subject, even though I am a big reader and love to learn "how to" from books. It seemed to me that books were full of quick novelty exercises while what I needed was just to listen to someone else guide me. I found a couple of web sites with recorded meditations on them, and YouTube had plenty. (Alas, my favorite night time sleep meditation from that time has been removed.) I also like the evening meditation from the DVD AM and PM Meditation featuring Rodney Yee and Maritza. I would put it on my bedroom TV, skip the yoga part (because I have my own practice, but it is not necessary to use the yoga part to do the meditation) and use it to get to sleep at night.

I had a big breakthrough when I followed the Yoga JournalMediation Revolution series.  (I wrote about my experiences as I was going through them, so see this tag on meditation for all of the entries. As with the DVD, I had my own yoga practice and skipped that, using only the recording at the bottom of the page.) It took me a couple of months to get through the whole series, and it was hard, but I grew tremendously from it. I use techniques from the Great Heart meditation when I need to feel connected to my HP. In fact, the whole series made me more independent in my meditation and I can now sit quietly and meditate on my own, using my own intuition instead of a recording.

These days, at night before I go to bed I do some kind of relaxation yoga practice and then sit quietly in bed and meditate. This helps wind me down so I can sleep, no matter what is going on in my life at the moment. I feel that I have been working Step 11 hard over the past few months, but now I am reaping great rewards from it.

The Al-Anon Promises: Part 1 – Joy, Fulfillment and Wonder

Over the next few months, I’m going to write a series of blog entries about the Al-Anon promises, addressing them one at a time and thinking about how they apply to my life. The first promise states…

“If we willingly surrender ourselves to the spiritual discipline of the Twelve Steps, our lives will be transformed. We will become mature, responsible individuals with a great capacity for joy, fulfillment, and wonder.”

(Photo by Sanja Gjenero.)

From my viewpoint, this particular statement starts out the list of Al Anon Promises with a bit of a fantastical note. (For a full list of the promises see page 269 of From Survival to Recovery for all of the Promises.) I mean, "joy, fulfillment and wonder" sounds like a Disney movie. But, I guess I can say I've found these things through Al-Anon's 12 Steps. I more tend to think that I've found serenity, spirituality, and self confidence through them. But, I will think about this.

"...willingly surrender...to the spiritual discipline..." Well, I think "surrender" is an interesting choice of words, because I think of actively working the steps, but then I work to surrender. 

"...our lives will be transformed." Yes, but it has be slow, over the course of years. Al Anon emphasizes slow progress and we work on ourselves all of our lives. It takes awhile to transform, but it does happen. I've transformed by becoming "mature and responsible", by making careful decisions and not giving in to old, destructive patterns of behavior.

Joy- I've found joy mainly through discovering a Higher Power, as in Steps 2, 3, 5 and 11. The joy comes from looking at the beauty of the world in the face of my problems. I don't exactly ignore my problems, but I do find ways to solve them more constructively and make sure they don't take over my whole life.

Fulfillment- I can say I'm happier and because I've learned to look at things differently, I can take care of myself and feel fulfilled even when things are difficult. Yes, I may not have exactly the solution to the problem right now, but I can find fulfillment in other relationships, interests, work or spirituality. When things are bad, there are always other things to look to balance out the difficulties. 

Wonder- I do find wonder in the weirdest places. I've always loved nature, but my wonder in Al Anon has turned to people. Since we are supposed to keep our hobbies, opinions and professions out of the meetings, I love so many people for who they are as people. This is a great source of wonderment for me, as I've never been a people person before I came to Al Anon.

I can say there have been some drastic positive changes in my life since I came to Al-Anon. Even if I do not like the way this promise is worded it is true to some extent.

Al-Anon’s Step 10

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Al-Anon’s Step 10: Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

Sometimes I wonder, do I ever really work this step? I know I do in some way, but I often feel like I didn’t because I wasn’t doing it in the way people talk about. It seems that the most popular way for people to do step 10 is to review their day while they are in bed waiting to go to sleep. I usually just want to go to sleep. But, like all of the steps, there is more than one way to work them.

(Photo by Carl Dwyer.)

I don’t have many notes for Step 10 in my Al-Anon meeting notebooks. It seems to be a bit of a neglected step in my area. I do have notes that say Step 10 helps identify what is blocking further progress. This is the step to use when you hit the wall. One member referred to it as "cleaning your mind". It is about asking yourself, "What is the lesson I need to learn from this?" Learn it and move on in peace.

My number one way to work Step 10, I think, is to just go to meetings. This is a quiet place where I can detach from what is going on around me and try to think more. This blog is another good way to reflect. I also know people that go through the Step 4 workbook, Blueprint for Progress every single year, but I don’t. Sometimes I will review a section or two on an appropriate topic, but I found that I over-thought my fourth step by using Blueprint for Progress and so I take it gently.

According to Paths to Recovery some people call Step 10 a “maintenance step” while others call it a “continuous growth” step. I prefer continuous growth. The chapter on Step 10 also emphasizes using all the previous steps, such as asking God to remove our shortcomings when we realize we are wrong. I always took “and promptly admitted it” to be about apologizing, but then I realized it is more about my relationship with my Higher Power. Only by doing this can I see the appropriate way for amends. After all, we are first powerless over other people and must think and take the next right action if we want things to be settled.

Intimacy

(Illustration by Rafael Marchesini.)

In the third session of the Fall 2010 workshop I went to a session on intimacy. This, I knew, was a hard topic for me because I've never allowed many people to get close to me. Even now, I have few friends, though Al Anon allows me to be more social that I used to be. In fact, I go to so many Al Anon events because they are “safe”. I know many of the people and I know there will be no drinking. However, socializing outside of Al Anon continues to be a struggle. Because I came from the "crazy" alcoholic family I never wanted people to know my secrets and I was ashamed of just everything about myself. I had no idea of how to have a "normal" friendship. So, here are some of my notes from the past fall workshop session on intimacy.

Intimacy starts with letting others love you. Not being yourself around people prevents intimacy. And, depending on yourself to solve everything  all of the time prevents engaging with other people. The difficult part of intimacy comes when you have to tell people things you don't want to tell them or that  you willl know they won't like. When people talk about intimate things you love them more.

I just realized that Al Anon and the 12 steps are all about fostering intimacy. Telling another human being about your shortcomings and they will listen without judgment. Learning to accept yourself after seeing that other people accept you for what you are.